Leaked Report Admits That Hadopi First Strike Accusations Won't Be Reviewed For Accuracy

from the accuse-away! dept

As the French "three strikes" Hadopi process begins, with tens of thousands of notices being sent out to accused file sharers (their "first strike"), things may be even more ridiculous than previously assumed. Guillaume Champeau fills us in on the details of a leaked report from the French privacy commissioner (Google translation from the original French). Basically, the privacy commissioner CNIL admits that, due to the number of notices being sent, Hadopi will simply not be able to review the accusations for accuracy, and will need to accept the claims from TMG, the company hired by the entertainment industry to accuse people. Here's Champeau's summary:

"Rights holders have been authorized in June to collect IP addresses on P2P networks, by recruiting the services of the French company TMG. It will monitor P2P networks, store the IP addresses it believes illegally shares copyrighted works, and their rights holder customers will forward the ones they want to the French HADOPI.

Early this week, an internal report by the CNIL was leaked. The CNIL is the Privacy Commissioner in France. It is the Commission which has allowed rights holders to use the TMG services and collect IP addresses.

The report says that "due to the high number of expected cases (25 000 a day at first, then 150 000 a day), it is impossible for the [right holders' agents] to check the [infringement] reports one by one. Nonetheless, the system does not have particular control procedures, for instance by sampling, which would allow an agent to detect anomalies in a collection session".

It says that "the actions of the Hadopi will be limited to accepting or denying the transmitted findings, without the ability to check them. The first steps of the "three strikes" process will therefore lay only upon the collection operated by the TMG system".

Despite these concerns, the CNIL did authorize the right holders to collect the IP addresses, and did not oppose the 3 strikes process by the Hadopi.

Read that bold part carefully. What this is saying is that despite the fact that you can be kicked off the internet based solely on accusations, not convictions, and despite all of the problems with false accusations and the fact that an IP address alone does not accurately identify an individual, and despite the fact that the massive number of notices being sent out mean that there will surely be false positives, the only people reviewing these notices to make sure they're accurate will be employed by the agent hired by the copyright holders themselves. Due process? It's dead.

Re:

"This is just insanity. Utter, complete insanity."

It is desperation not insanity. It is an attempt to hold back the tide. It is the second worst thing that the labels and studios could have done to protect themselves. The worst is actually jail time for infringement, which is coming in ACTA.

You are dealing with people in a serious state of denial being "helped" by lawyers and lobbyists. The lawyer and lobbyists only goals are to make money for themselves. They will do anything asked of them no matter how self deluded the people or requests are.

Don't worry about it. To use a music term the whole thing is coming to a crescendo. After which the system they are trying to support and create will collapse. Its the nature of bubbles and technological disruption.

What this is saying is that despite the fact that you can be kicked off the internet based solely on accusations, not convictions, and despite all of the problems with false accusations and the fact that an IP address alone does not accurately identify an individual, and despite the fact that the massive number of notices being sent out mean that there will surely be false positives, the only people reviewing these notices to make sure they're accurate will be employed by the agent hired by the copyright holders themselves. Due process? It's dead.
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Re: At a 150,000 per day

By my maths with 42 million internet users it will take about two years, three months at 50,000 per day to send a takedown to every internet user in france. However I'll bet that there are far less connections than there are users. So mabey 6 months to get one to every internet connection, and 2 years to get everyone banned.

I expect that this rate of notice publication is going to backfire very badly for the french government.

Re: Re: At a 150,000 per day

"So mabey 6 months to get one to every internet connection, and 2 years to get everyone banned."

If I am remembering the number for France correctly 52% (22 million internet connections) of the country infringes on a regular basis (its way higher in spain). So not everyone will be disconnected or notified.

What you should expect is a bell curve where ...

The top 16.5% of the 22 million infringers to get notified often and very rapidly. This is the really techno savy crowd. They will quickly switch to VPN or other methods of infringement.

Below that you have the 66% of average infringers these are the people who will get kicked off the internet. This is where the problems will occur for the labels and studios. Kids, old people, the not to smart, the newbies, the crazies. These are the people who will complain to the ISPs, sue, and contact their political reps. HADOPI will then be removed from the books and an internet fee much like the CD levy will be imposed. Which will also be removed under the same EU laws that got Spains CD levy removed.

Re: Re: Re: At a 150,000 per day

"If I am remembering the number for France correctly 52% (22 million internet connections) of the country infringes on a regular basis (its way higher in spain). So not everyone will be disconnected or notified. "

You assume that only actual infringers will be accused, this is incorrect. Those falsely accused will hopefully be very vocal about it.

Re: Re:

So Hadopi is asking the ISP's for information about its customers to that they can be kicked off the internet and no longer be paying customers.
I am pretty sure the ISPs are not going to support this.
What will happen if an ISP looses 10,000 customers? Do you think they will notice? Do you think they are going to hand over the next group of information as easily?
Since the list is not being checked, can we add the Hadopi and TMG members names and IPs and see what happens?

Re:

Exactly what I was thinking. Get the addresses of every government official and let the now internetless accused with tons of free time wardrive their homes. Breaking wifi security is simple now and after a portion of the government realize that they are being accused and have their internet removed without due process they might reconsider this law.

Re: Re: Re:

Last time i talked to a French person, they did have a law that if you do not 'adequately' protect your wifi, you can be fined. I have no idea whether or not you can then still be held responsible for whatever is done with your network, but judging from this article, actual guilt has no relation with all this any more anyway.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Actually, Its : you are as guilty as the one who used your connection because you didnt secure "it"; and the only way to prove it was secure is to install a spyware-like program to log everything you do...which do not exist yet (only the spec were leaked). And yes there can be a fine... or worse.

God im gonna love trying to find the IPs of the people who voted this law and inject them in surveyed files :)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

That's like charging someone with armed robbery because they left their car unlocked, the real bad guy stole it, used it in the real crime and the police are too lazy to find him - so it's all your fault. Oh, and they want their money back too.

Re: Selective enforcement?

Does anyone else find this hilarious funny/extremely seriously dangerous that this is happening in FRANCE???

I think the government there seems to have forgotten a little thing called 'The French Revolution'....oh wait, sorry this is Hollywood, they're probably hoping for Revolution II, so they can make a franchise out of it!

150,000 a day???

415x3 = 1245 days until everyone in france is kicked off the net! (may take a bit longer since they aren't checking anything and will send strike letters to some people even AFTER they've been kicked off!).....

I therefore predict if this all goes ahead, that madame guillotine will start her comeback tour sometime around June 2013.........

Re: Re: 150,000 a day???

The beauty of this system is that it doesn't matter if you actually infringe. If you get reported, you have a strike. Sure, the half that doesn't infringe on copyright will probably have a lower rate of reports, but innocence is no defense against Hadopi.

Re: Re: 150,000 a day???

You assume, again, that whether or not you actually infringed makes a difference. Go read the law again. They don't care if you're actually guilty.

In fact, the way it reads, all they do is monitor the P2P networks and grab IP's off of them. Knowing how Hollywood thinks, I'll bet they just grab every IP they see using any P2P for anything and send it off to HADOPI.

Much of the complaint against this law is that it takes "guilty until proven innocent" and tosses it out the window, giving complete power to whoever wants to kick anyone off the internet.

Thus, his math, while certainly simple, is unfortunately accurate. I personally don't think it will take nearly as long as he says to get everyone off.

Oh, and the 150,000/day figure? Ya, that comes directly quoted from the article. Go read it again.

Re: Re: Re: 150,000 a day???

Is there actually anything that specifies it must come from monitoring P2P? I thought the only requirement was an acusation of copyright infringment. They could run out of P2P IPs and start sending them out for "undisclosed reasons" (random IPs) couldn't they?

Coming soon to a country near you!

It really amazes me how the French who are generally concerned about privacy would allow this to happen.

Needles to say TMG services could easily use this information they can acquire for uses outside of stopping "infringement". I say this only because when absolute power is granted it will inevitably become absolutely corrupted.

Scary time to be in France considering that they have effectively privatized a portion of their legal system. I think the term for that is Fascism.